


No Passenger

by OtherCat



Series: OtherCat's Snippets and Incomplete Fic [19]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, LACKEY Mercedes - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-02
Updated: 2004-02-02
Packaged: 2018-10-04 08:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10272074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: Lindsey is on a mission, Xander has an unexpected talent.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Crossover with Mercedes Lackey's Bedlam Bard books in which Lindsey McDonald is a Bard, and chooses a different path from the one he did in canon.

> They said "Why are you here?"
> 
> I said "I'm doing time,
> 
> 'Cause I'm willing to break laws,
> 
> But I won't commit no crime." --No Passenger, Boiled In Lead.

 

"Good to see you've got your act together, kid," Jake said, and took a swig from his jar of homebrew. "I was beginning to think your head was permanently wedged up your ass."

Lindsey winced. "Yeah, well, you might say...I had an epiphany." He looked out at the view just beyond the porch--at what looked like West Virginian country side, but was actually a small Underhill realm. Jake had been his first teacher, and would always be his closest friend.

He'd first met Jake when he was twelve, while his family was visiting relatives in West Virginia. He'd gone walking in the woods, and had heard someone playing the guitar. There'd been something in the music that had called him, an impulse deeper than curiosity that sent him deeper into the woods, toward the music. After some more wandering, into the woods, and off the trail, he'd seen what at first looked like a huge black man, sitting on a stump, playing the blues on an old, battered guitar. Then the man had looked up, smiling at him with huge yellow eyes, and what he'd thought was black skin was actually the deepest darkest blue he'd ever seen. At that moment, he'd realized that what he was looking at, wasn't a _human_ man at all. Somehow, though, he hadn't been afraid. "You play real good," he'd said.

The man, the creature, had nodded. "You're a good listener," he'd said, and set the guitar against the stump. "Name's Jake."

"Lin," he'd said. Jake nodded again. Weirdly, the next questions Lindsey had asked had had nothing at all to do with what "Jake" might be, but how long it took to learn how play the guitar, about their respective families, and in Lindsey's case at least, school. It was getting close to sunset when Jake finally shooed him home, with promises to meet at the same spot in the woods the next day. His parents had been upset over his wandering off, but he never told them where he'd been, or what he'd been up to.

The next day, he'd gone back. Jake had told him what he was the second day, had explained that the music he had heard had been a "calling in" song. That Jake was a being called a "Blue Man," a being that usually worked in mines. That Jake was a Bard, and had then explained to him what a Bard was, how Jake had been looking for a student to teach, and that Lindsey seemed like a likely candidate. Told him about human Bards and the sort of magics they could achieve if their talent was trained. Jake had been like a second father to him, or a beloved uncle, always there for him when things seemed the bleakest, had persuaded him to stay in school, and thrown a party when he'd gotten a scholarship.

Despite his musical leanings, he had decided to pursue a career in law. Jake had initially approved. Just as not all human bards created magic with music, so too, not all musician Bards were performers, and a Bard who was also a lawyer--a brehon--were skilled with rooting out the truth in any case. However, the Blue Man Bard hadn't approved at all of Lindsey's decision to join Wolfram and Hart, and their last argument over his choice had nearly ended in blows. This would be the first time in nearly five years that he'd paid Jake a visit. "You were right, Jake," the Bard said softly, idly flexing and unflexing the fingers of his "evil hand."

"That still bothering you, kid?" Jake asked gently.

"No, no writing or anything," Lindsey said, attempting to be flippant.

Jake wasn't buying it. "That wasn't what I meant."

Lindsey glanced quickly at his friend and mentor. There was no anger, or condemnation in the Blue Man's eyes. Just warmth and concern, and a little exasperation. "Yeah, it still bothers me." He had nightmares about it sometimes--about the rows of tanks filled with mutilated bodies. About the tormented eyes that stared at him from behind the glass. About the hard, condemning eyes of the vampire Lindsey had spentthe better part of a year trying to destroy. Who had in turn, destroyed the thick layer of ice Lindsey had wrapped around himself. All without knowing, or actually intending to in the first place. "I keep thinking that there's something I need to do, to make amends," Lindsey snorted and shook his head. "Penance, or something. Like whatever the hell Angel is looking for."

"You really want that? To be a Champion?" Jake asked with lifted brows.

Lindsey sighed, and sat back in his chair. "No, I don't...I just need a direction to move in."

Jake echoed Lindsey's sigh with one of his own. "Kid, you've got a guitar, and two hands to play it with. You have years of training-- _my_ training, and I'll have you know I'm one damn fine teacher--if you needa direction, why don't you _find_ one," The Blue Man said, glaring at his friend and former student.

Lindsey blinked. "Fuck. I'm an idiot."

"Won't argue with you there, kid," Jake said with a grin.

Lindsey laughed, and shook his head. Within a few minutes, he had his guitar out and tuned. He played a blues progression, adding licks and flourishes as he tried to put into words--linear thoughts--what he felt he needed. With magic, it was important to keep it simple, to pare things down to the absolutely necessary. Equally important, was to keep it specific, and free of "open interpretation," or loopholes as possible Lindsey smiled. Almost the exact opposite of being a lawyer of Wolfram and Hart.

_Where do I need to be? Where can I do the most good?_ Were the questions he asked. Repeated three times, the final one to tie the knot.Eyes still closed, Lindsey let the guitar fall silent, and waited for the answer.

The answer was the sound of a guitar being played, of a young, dark haired man tuning a guitar. Of a spark of Talent gone fallow with disuse, of love, and loyalty and determination. Of a confusion of imagescentered around a young, blonde woman, of a familiar, dark haired vampire, of an unfamiliar punk vampire in a black duster. Of a many-times vandalized sign..."Welcome to Sunnydale..."

 

* * *

 

The music drifting down the hall from the whelp's apartment wasn't loud by human standards, but was clearly audible to Spike's vampiric hearing. An acoustic version of "Yesterday" with the warm sound of something that was being played live, and not from a recording. _Not my cup of tea, but the whelp knows his stuff,_ Spike thought as he headed toward the door.

Spike had found out about the whelp's talent very recently--the boy had never played while they were unwilling roomies in the Basement of Doom--he'd just been heading for the whelp's apartment one evening, sent by the Slayer, with a little care package of cookies Dawn had baked in her Home Ec class. (The Slayer had said too cheer Xander up after Anya dumped him, but Spike suspected that she hadn't wanted to try and eat the oddly shaped and colored results of Dawn's first baking attempt.)

He had heard an acoustic guitar playing the overture from Rush's _2112_. Spike had waited until the song was over, then knocked. There'd been a long pause, and when the whelp had finally answered the door, the guitar had been nowhere in sight. Only the slightly wary, suspicious look in Xander's eyes had let Spike know that the boy had been playing at all. Spike didn't know the reason for the look, or why the boy was apparently shy about his skill, and hadn't felt any particular urge to needle the whelp about it.

It had become something of an open secret between them, especially since Anya had left the boy, shortly after the Slayer's resurrection. Xander played, and Spike listened. Then they'd both swing by the Magic Shop, to meet with the others for patrolling, or they'd go to The Bronze. Spike had even started coming over a little earlier, just so he could hear more of the whelp's playing. "Yesterday," drew to a close as Spike reached the door, and was followed by "Sympathy for the Devil." Spike snorted. _Playing to the crowd, whelp?_ Next was Tom Petty, "Running Down a Dream," followed by "Little Pink Houses," and the end of the set, because Spike could hear the faint sounds of the guitar being put back in it's case and stowed away into whatever hiding space the whelp kept it in.

Spike took up his usual pose, leaning nonchalantly against the door jamb. Xander exited the apartment, dressed in a old shirt, jeans, and and boots. "Hey Spike," the whelp said, "ready to go?" Spike nodded, and fell into step beside the whelp.

As always, he thought of breaking the comfortable silence, and simply complimenting the whelp's playing. Or drawing him into a conversation that would lead to Spike learning why Xander wanted to keep his talent a secret. As always, he kept his mouth shut. He didn't want to say anything that the whelp might take wrong, he just wanted to enjoy whatever feeling of comradery existed between them...and if anyone had told him even a year ago that he'd actually _want_ friendship from one of the Slayer's groupies--any of the Slayer's groupies-- he'd have laughed his ass off...just before killing the nutter.

_Going soft_ , Spike thought, without much heat. Soft in the head, to fall for a Slayer, soft in the heart to care at all about what she and her friends thought of him. Soft to want her trust, soft to want to earn it. _And I'm brooding like the poof...bloody hell._

Just after Halloween, he and Buffy had had a...talk. The topic of course, had been their non-relationship. "What do I need to do, to prove I'm not playing a game?" He had asked. "To prove I'm not messing with your head?"

He had half-expected her to blow up in his face, to go into her usual tirade, the same old, same old. You're an evil soulless demon, and I hate you. Lather, rinse, repeat. Instead, she'd just looked at him withthose sad, distant eyes of hers. "Spike, you love Drusilla, right?" 

Not quite sure where she was going with this, he'd said yes. 

"And I love Angel?" Tiny glimmer of a clue. Spike nodded. "And Angelus stole Dru from you," Buffy said softly. "Tell me why I wouldn't think it was a game."

"You'd think I'd--" Spike had said angrily, then cut himself off. "Of course you do...bloody hell woman, I'm a evil bastard, but I'm no Angelus!"

"No, you're just his kid...grandkid, whatever. Just someone who has on more than one occasion said that the instant you get the chip out, you're going to kill me and all my friends. Tell me why I shouldn't think that you're messing with my head?"

On one hand, he'd been elated that she still considered him to be dangerous, despite the chip. _Yeh, still the Big Bad..._ On the other hand, being considered dangerous...wasn't entirely what he wanted, not if it meant she didn't trust him. Lack of trust, at least in the Slayer's case, did not lead to shagging.  "Tell me what I need to do then, to convince you," he'd said finally.

"I--don't know Spike. Could we...just take it slow?" She'd looked at him with those, wide, sad eyes, and he known that there was a chance, just a chance, that she might be able to care for him.

So...he took it slow, tried to be patient, tried to be her friend.

Tried not to go insane.

Making nice with the whelp helped, helped more than he was willing to admit to himself. He could trade insults or quips with Xander, and not get into whatever quagmire of past conflicts existed between him and the Slayer. Not that there _weren't_ conflicts between him and Xander...just that they weren't _quite_ on the same level, all comments about being moist and delicious aside.

Spike smirked, and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the young man. Not for the first time, the vampire wondered what would have happened if...he'd upped the ante a little. Or at least, if evil floating undertakers/vivsectionists hadn't decided to pick that night to go on a chopping spree.

When they arrived at the Magic Shop, Buffy was just ringing up the last of the customers, while Giles talked on the phone, the receiver cradled between cheek and shoulder as he paged through a large, leather bound book. Dawn was doing homework at one of the tables. She looked up when the bell above the door rang, and bounced up out of her chair. "Hey Xander, Hey Spike," she said, coming over to meet them.

"Niblet," Spike said with a nod, "How's the book report coming?"

Dawn made a face "Awful. I hate the book, I hate the alleged class discussions about the book, and I hate Mr. Helms' commentary _about_ the book...and did I mention I hate the book?"

Xander walked around to the table, and groaned dramatically, making a warding gesture " _Lord of the Flies_! The bane of my existence! Argh!" He collapsed into a chair, pretending to swoon. 

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Mr. Helms' is the bane of mine. If it turns out he's really a demon, could Spike beat him up?"

"No beating up teachers," Buffy said as the last customer headed out the door. Dawn groaned in not-entirely-mock disappointment. "Even demony ones, unless you can prove they're eating students," the Slayer said firmly.

"'Sucks to your assmar, Piggy,'" Xander muttered, and snitched Dawn's notes. Glanced over it. _"What_ symbolism? In _Lord of the Flies_?" He handed the notes over to Spike. "Here, you were college boy, _you_ figure this out."

Spike read over the notes. "Bloody hell." He gave Dawn a narrow look. "Pet, are these notes word for word what he said?"

"Not word for word, but pretty close."

The Slayer meanwhile, was getting that If-you-don't-tell-me-what-the-hell's-going-on-I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass look in her eye. Spike was immediately struck by an irrational urge to dangle the notes just out of reach...which he knew damn well would go over like a lead balloon. Not that he'd mind a little tiff with the Slayer, of course....Instead, he handed the papers over, saying "If that's what they're teaching in class, luv, I suggest homeschooling."

Buffy read. Buffy spluttered. " _Christ_ symbolism? In _Lord of the Flies_? Is this guy on c _rack_?"

"He said the same thing about _Jonathon Livingston Seagull_ ," Dawn said mournfully.

"Well, _that_ I can _almost_ see--"

"Bloody hell, they're making you read _that_ pap?"

"As fascinating as this literary discussion is, I'm _on the phone_ ," Giles said testily, and continued his conversation on the phone. Spike was amused to see both Buffy and Xander wince guiltily and chorus an apology, looking like a pair of scolded kids for a split second before realizing, _Hey, adults here, G-man_.

"Are you going to yell at the teacher?" Dawn asked Buffy hopefully. "Let me transfer out?"

"I'll _talk_ to the teacher," Buffy said, "and you're _still_ gonna write the report."

Dawn groaned. "Buffy--" before she could continue her whine the Slayer tapped her playfully with the notes.

"Not getting out of it, even if the teacher _is_ an idiot." Buffy glanced up at Spike, asking a question with lifted brows. _Give her a hand, college boy?_

Spike nodded, and pulled out a chair to sit in. He took the notes from the Slayer and sat down. "Here pet, let's look over these an' come up with a theme that gives the teacher a heart attack..."

 

> Been looking for a sparrow
> 
> In a city full of wrens,
> 
> Been asking for the cost
> 
> So I can make amends,
> 
> Been waiting for the questions
> 
> so my answers will make sense,
> 
> Been looking for the way home,
> 
> But the snow is much too dense.--No Passenger, Boiled in Lead

 

Sunnydale was college-town quiet, but it wasn't hard for a Bard--or a lawyer formerly in the pay of Wolfram and Hart to see past the surface. The bard heard a hum, just below hearing that rattled Lindsey's teeth, a bass note that shivered in the air, threatening to drown out all lesser sounds. That was the Hellmouth. Below that steady drone, were the lesser harmonies and dissonances of various non humans, the varied songs of ordinary people living ordinary lives, the silvery notes of magic users, the predatory melodies of vampires, the soaring counter point of a resident Slayer.

Jake had given him references and enough money to set himself up in a apartment, instead of having to stay at a hotel. Lindsey used the references to get regular gigs in three of the local bars that catered to both humans and demons. Surprisingly, or maybe not, considering the way the mundane populace valiantly ignored the darker side of the town, there were very few bars that had a mixed human/nonhuman clientele.

The Speak Easy was a blues bar that had been around since Prohibition, run by a half-Bracchen who'd been a bootlegger. Mab's was an eclectic mix of rockabilly and western swing with a dash of bluegrass thrown in almost as an after thought. The owner was a Phouka, and an old friend of Jake's, who had gleefully spun stories about the Blue Man's civil rights/union activist days. Before he'd "calmed down." The third place, the Emergency Room, was near Sunnydale General, and leaned toward classic rock. The Emergency Room was owned by a Kitsune no one ever saw, and managed/tended by a human woman named Shoshana who was an Empath, and was working her way through a psychology degree. All of them had been willing to offer him jobs after brief, token auditions--auditions that he'd insisted on, not wanting to rely entirely on Jake's good word, or on the fact that he was, after all, a _Bard_.

Once he had settled into his apartment, his life found a routine. Saturdays and most Sundays, he played at the Emergency Room. Tuesdays and Thursdays, at Mab's, Fridays and alternate Mondays at the Speak Easy. During the day, and on days off, he tried to get information on possible leads that would help him find the untrained Bard the vision had shown him, or failing that, the bleached vampire his vision had told him was somehow connected to the young man--and the Slayer.

 

 

Buffy. Not the most ominous or fateful of names for a Slayer--it didn't exactly ring with heroism, or portents of doom, or whatever. Still, the name _did_ seem to spark a sort of trepidation in the demon populace of Sunnydale--so much so they usually simply referred to her as "the  Slayer," as if that was her given name, and not the other. It was "I saw the Slayer take on a Greblak at Restfulview last night," or "The Slayer's looking for word on the Aksarin Prophecy." It was interesting that the demons in town _knew_ the Slayer, by both name and face, yet seldom truly _used_ this information against her. Instead, it almost seemed that for the most part, the local demon populace regarded her as a sort of "sherrif" with her small core group of friends serving as her "deputies."

Which, as far as he knew concerning Slayers, was entirely unprecedented. Never in modern history had there been a case when a large community of demons or humans had known about the Slayer's existence, and it was even more unprecedented for that Slayer to have people fighting at her side. Traditionally, the Slayer was a loner, fighting with only the support of her Watcher to back her up.

The Watchers Council followed the philosophy that the human race was best "protected" from darkness by being kept ignorant of it. _Oh, yeah, lets everybody hide under the covers and the monsters under the bed won't be able to get us._ On the Hellmouth though, where it seemed that a majority of the human populace was blind to the darkness about them, there were seemingly ordinary people who might not know *what* a Slayer was, but was aware that a "protector" existed. People who knew who this protector was. People who had been her classmates, people who were her friends. People who had somehow survived an Ascension, an event they referred to as Graduation with various degrees of irony.

Lindsey was startled from his musings by a shout on the other end of the bar. 

"Kenny Taylor, just because the undead are immune to psionics in Dungeons and fucking Dragons, doesn't mean they are in real life!" Shoshana shouted at the groaning form on the floor.

Lindsey choked on his beer.

"But I'm _dead_ ," the vampire whined. "No brain activity."

"That was probably true _before_ you were dead," another vampire--possibly Kenny's sire, and not much older than Kenny himself--said, pulling Kenny up off the floor.

"My head hurts."

"And whose fault is that? She's an _empath_ you idiot!" the other vampire said, and nodded to Shoshana. "I apologize for the rudeness, it won't happen again."

"Good," Shoshana said, glaring at the still whining Kenny. The vampire nodded again, and hauled Kenny out of the bar, cursing him out under his (non-existant) breath.

"What was that about?" Lindsey asked, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve as he came over to where Shoshana was standing.

Shoshana flicked a quick grin in Lindsey's direction, and gave the door the vampires had gone through another glare. "That was Kenny Taylor. I went to school with him," Shoshana said. "He got turned a year ago, during a Vampire, the Masquerade LARP." She made a face. "Irony, thy name is Sunnyhell."

Lindsey nodded. "Was he a friend?" 

"We were in a few campaigns together," Shoshana said, wrinkling her nose. "Not close, really, but his vampself is convinced he's in love," Shoshana said with a sigh. "It would actually be frightening, if it wasn't for the Boss, and the fact that Kenny's a total dork." A three eyed dog sitting at the bar ordered a Bloody Mary, and Shoshana mixed the drink and poured it into a bowl, scooting it across the bar to the doglike creature, before turning back to Lindsey. "But that's the Hellmouth for you, weirdness squared, y'know?"

Lindsey nodded. "Just beginning to figure that out, I think," he said with a grin.

Later that evening, in his own apartment, Lindsey sat back on his ratty, came-with-the-apartment couch.

 


End file.
